Reviews for DuoKeyboard
DuoKeyboard by Nullbrains
Review by Johannes Aquila
Rated 4 out of 5
by Johannes Aquila, 3 years agoContrary to some reviews, in my experience this plugin does work in principle. (I am using it on Linux, but this should not make a difference.)
A plugin like this is absolutely necessary if:
- You are learning a language on Duolingo that is written in a script that is not based on the Latin alphabet. (Examples: Russian, Greek, Hebrew, Chinese.)
- You want to type out answers in your target language, not switch to the dumb mode where you just click words as in the mobile version of Duolingo.
- You can't or don't want to switch manually between two keyboard layouts all the time.
As someone who regularly types in the translation instead of the original sentence in dictation exercises, I find that this plugin also solves that problem for me -- in languages with other scripts.
On first use, you are prompted to configure this plugin correctly for your source(!) and target languages. Take this seriously, because there are no reasonable defaults! For example, for learning Greek from English I had to configure not just switching to a Greek keyboard for Greek, but also switching back to an English keyboard for English.
If you make a configuration mistake, you can reconfigure this plugin through Preferences -> Extensions & Themese -> Extensions -> DuoKeyboard -> "..." -> Preferences. Then select the language whose settings you want to change, change them, and save.
This plugin is absolutely worth it to me, although it has some serious bugs:
- Hovering over a word to see its translation deletes the last word entered.
- When you try to return a single-word answer to Duolingo, your input is deleted instead. To prevent this, press the space key once after your single-word answer.
- I haven't tried this myself yet, but I am prepared to believe the reports of problems with Hebrew. Support for scripts written right-to-left is particularly hard.
Currently there is a tiny number of plugins doing the same for up to three languages. If you are learning one of these, it may be worth trying out one of the alternatives instead. (Having 2 such plugins active at the same time probably leads to chaos.)
A plugin like this is absolutely necessary if:
- You are learning a language on Duolingo that is written in a script that is not based on the Latin alphabet. (Examples: Russian, Greek, Hebrew, Chinese.)
- You want to type out answers in your target language, not switch to the dumb mode where you just click words as in the mobile version of Duolingo.
- You can't or don't want to switch manually between two keyboard layouts all the time.
As someone who regularly types in the translation instead of the original sentence in dictation exercises, I find that this plugin also solves that problem for me -- in languages with other scripts.
On first use, you are prompted to configure this plugin correctly for your source(!) and target languages. Take this seriously, because there are no reasonable defaults! For example, for learning Greek from English I had to configure not just switching to a Greek keyboard for Greek, but also switching back to an English keyboard for English.
If you make a configuration mistake, you can reconfigure this plugin through Preferences -> Extensions & Themese -> Extensions -> DuoKeyboard -> "..." -> Preferences. Then select the language whose settings you want to change, change them, and save.
This plugin is absolutely worth it to me, although it has some serious bugs:
- Hovering over a word to see its translation deletes the last word entered.
- When you try to return a single-word answer to Duolingo, your input is deleted instead. To prevent this, press the space key once after your single-word answer.
- I haven't tried this myself yet, but I am prepared to believe the reports of problems with Hebrew. Support for scripts written right-to-left is particularly hard.
Currently there is a tiny number of plugins doing the same for up to three languages. If you are learning one of these, it may be worth trying out one of the alternatives instead. (Having 2 such plugins active at the same time probably leads to chaos.)
25 reviews
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 12436673, a month agoDoesn't work. Clicking on the virtual keyboard does nothing.
- Rated 4 out of 5by Kitty None, 2 years agoExceptionally useful except that it has a bug that causes it to delete characters or whole words if you scroll over a hint or hit submit without hitting space first. Given how long it's been since it was updated, I assume this plugin is abandoned, and since there aren't other plugins like it one must simply live with the bugs. Still, it would be nice if either the original devs fixed this extremely useful extension, or new devs made one that consistently works.
- Rated 3 out of 5by Firefox user 16333136, 3 years agoWorks more or less as intended, but it keeps deleting words when I hover over the words in Duolingo to read the dictionary words. It'll delete whole words at a time, making it kinda hard to work with. And anyway, it doesn't seem like this addon is being updated anymore
- Rated 5 out of 5by Sophie, 3 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by LEM, 4 years agoNo instructions on how to actually use it! It is not synced to my Hebrew course on Duolingo and I don't know how to make it sync. At this point, totally worthless
- Rated 1 out of 5by Tacoxo, 4 years agono japanese keyboard? when you update it let me know ill change my review
- Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 16060764, 4 years ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by John47, 4 years ago
- Rated 3 out of 5by YungBahlr, 4 years agoIt seems like a good service. Is there any way you can add a Japanese keyboard next though? Even if it's just like a hiragana-only keyboard that switches to katakana when you use the caps lock button, That would be really wonderful.
I don't think duolingo cares too much about kanji input anyways. Thank you dude. - Rated 5 out of 5by Alex, 4 years agoОтличное дополнение. Экономит кучу времени. Спасибо разработчику.
- Rated 4 out of 5by Богуслав, 5 years agoIt is great extension but there is a bug. When I start timed practice and type something it deletes word I have written, I type something, and it deletes every second the last word. Please fix it. Thank you)
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 15263255, 5 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 13948774, 5 years agoit doesn't work we with Hindi. in Hindi vowels consonant pars are expressed by a mark at the beginning, end or above or below the consonant. i was able to produce the mark but not the lone vowel as such it made it vary difficult to tip. Also in Hindi consonant can be conjoined together to make a new symbol this extension didn't do that ether. I'm sure that for other languages its good but for Hindi its subpar.
- Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 15185504, 5 years agoHi there, I was enjoying your plugin for one lesson in Russian and it worked perfectly. I don't remember if it's after or before saving the preference that it stopped working. In any case, when I have to write in Russian, the keyboard shows for a split second, above the exercise then disappear. I can still write in Cyrillic but the visual keyboard don't show. I tried everything in the settings, setting to shown, hidden, back to shown.
Here is my review, i hope I'll be able to change it if you can resolve my issue :)
Have a nice summer !Developer response
posted 5 years agoThanks for the heads up. The bug has been fixed you can enjoy the full potential of DuoKeyboard yet again :) - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14769773, 6 years agoThank you very much for this very helpful add-on. I've been using it for several months and don't want to miss it anymore.
- Rated 1 out of 5by Nasty Pirate, 6 years agoIt seems that every 2 years approximately, this addon malfunctions. Once again, it is not recognized by Duolingo and it's frustrating. I tried refreshing firefox, deleting the addon and reinstalling but nothing worked... Maybe you can fix it again like you did 2 years ago? Duolingo site has been updated again. I will of course restore my review to 5 stars when you do :)
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13339378, 6 years ago@ Nullbrains 2019-02-18 13:59
keyboard layout "French (Canada)" qwerty
Thanks for this great add-on!
Regarding French for users with qwerty keyboards there exists a keyboard layout "French (Canada)" which one can e.g. add in Windows 10. More info: http://ascii-table.com/keyboards.php , French Canada, Keyboard number: 445, 058.
Would it be possible to include the qwerty keyboard layout "French (Canada)" in DuoKeyboard? French courses for qwerty keyboard users would be much easier then.
@ Nullbrains 2019-04-29 15:57
Thank you so much for the keyboard layout "French (Canada)" - Rated 5 out of 5by Chris, 7 years agoThanks for this useful addon!
After using it for some time now, there is only one problem: I am used to a QWERTZ layout and when switching to a keyboard with QWERTY layout like Spanish or Norwegian I am often mixing up the 'z' and 'y' when typing fast (e.g. when doing timed practice). This can be quite frustrating. As a consequence I finally decided to use the German keyboard for these languages.
Downside of this 'solution' is that usually I don't type any special characters which aren't available (or difficult to type) on a German keyboard layout. As I would like to learn typing these characters correctly, I wonder if there is any chance to get an option for QWERTZ/QWERTY layouts to always have QWERTZ or always QWERTY (don't change the 'y' and 'z' position but have the language specific keyboard otherwise)?
Thanks again for providing this addon! - Rated 3 out of 5by Firefox user 13110926, 7 years agoThere's a bug where the Hebrew keyboard types only vowels. Will have to disable this until it's fixed.
- Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 13687159, 7 years agoAwesome addon!
There are 2 issues though:
* Can't type 화. It just outputs 호아
* Sometimes the cheatsheet shows up, but vanishes really quickly. Can't figure out how to reproduce. - Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 13608524, 7 years agoI am unable to save settings and it comes up at the top of the page covering the content. Really not usable. I have reset Firefox and tried some other things but no joy.
Developer response
posted 7 years agoI assume you are using Firefox 52 ESR in that case the solution you need is given below. If you are using another version please provide me with more details on your firefox version and Operating system so I can look into it.
Since Firefox will only support webextensions from version 57 onwards DuoKeyboard has upgraded to this. In Firefox 52 ESR not all features are enabled by default yet. Please enter "about:config" in the adres bar and set "webextensions.storage.sync.enabled" to be able to use DuoKeyboard. - Rated 1 out of 5by GVP, 7 years agoInstalled in Firefox 52 ESR on Windows 7 Professional. Opening options just leaves you with a screen with dialog box, no settings. No keyboard appears in Duolingo window. It simply doesn't work.
Developer response
posted 7 years agoSince Firefox will only support webextensions from version 57 onwards DuoKeyboard has upgraded to this. In Firefox 52 ESR not all features are enabled by default yet. Please enter "about:config" in the adres bar and set "webextensions.storage.sync.enabled" to be able to use DuoKeyboard.